Dave Thune wrote:
I'm officially neutral until after the dfl endorses for the mayor's
race, but I really have to jump in here and defend Chris Coleman's
record on GSE.
I'm not.
1. The GSE debacle started before Chris took office. In my last few days
on the Council we heard thru the grapevine that Minnesota Brewing was
talking to state officials about adding ethanol production to increase
the brewery's capacity and ensure the future of beer production in W
7th. I set up a mtg with Chris and Minnesota Brewing's Jack Lee to get
Chris up to speed.
Both of us were assured that ethanol production would not ruin beer
sales, the plant would not explode and it might have a small odor of
baking bread while in production. Jack invited neighbors to a rural
plant to see and smell for themselves
must have missed my invetation
since for the first nine months the plant was operating they were so noisey they violated OSHA (ocup safter health asso) levels for unprotected hearing for near by residents, saying that the plant couldn't be shut down at that point or any of the 9 months along the was is very disengenous, or very misinformed Dave.2. Many neighbors including myself as a civilian/ex elected official at first believed and placed our trust in local and state pollution control officials to protect us. I believe Chris was in this category. Others were skeptics and were proven right! The state had no interest in protecting us from the "smell of jobs". A whole bunch of us were wrong, however I doubt very much that even a united front at the early stages could have prevented GSE from opening and starting production.
please let Chris and any other member of the city council, mayor past and present explain why they kept passing ambush agenda items regarding out of court settlements with GSE, never once actualy requiring them to obey the law.3. I saw Chris taking action when it became obvious that we had been duped - and this was pretty early on. Unfortunately, laws protecting big business and flacid support from the state's PCA prevented the city from shutting down ethanol production. I also saw Chris's frustration with being blamed for the whole thing when I knew that his action was limited by lack of city technology and legal and city attorney's positions which don't allow for a city councilman just to walk over and pull the plug on a business.
Still dening the Noise issue I see. It took over 2000 signatures on pettitions for chris to even thing the plant stunk.4. Once we did set a course though for using the public nuisance laws to declare odor a nuisance and prove that there was more pollution coming out of the plant than the state would admit, Chris was consistantly on the neighborhood's side, working to stop the production of ethanol at GSE.
Hindsight is deceptive. It may be convenient now, to blame Chris ColemanAnd after 4 years of never meeting and or exceeding the city, county, state noise limits for residential property the great city of St. Paul could not prove chronic noise violations against GSE. (please some first year law student look up any special legal menaing for the word chronic)
for GSE but it isn't fair. The heroes were the folks who were early
skeptics and sued as CASE (thankyou Diane, Terese, Andy and all the
others...), but Chris acted as aggressively as an elected official could
possibly act once it was apparent we had all been deceived. One might
wish that our state elected officials had been as aggressive in
supporting our cause.
In hindsight I'd love to take credit for closing the plant because it happened during my term of office but I can't. It was because of CASE, dedicated neighbors and determined legal action by the city AND Chris Coleman, that meeting court ordered emission standards forced GSE out of business.
Don't worry Dave I wouldn't let you get away with it.
So which one oth the current mayoral canadates do you think will do a good job trying to abate the noise from the where gonna expand hollman field airport wether you want it or not. Can MAC (met airport comm) be trusted more than GSE to live up to its promises. Will we have the leadership on the council, or in the mayors office to control the new noise maker, when the city of St. Paul did nothing about the noise from GSE even though it was a hundred times louder than MAC standards 24/7/365dave thune predecessor and sucessor of chris coleman city council, St. Paul ------------------------------------------------- JOIN the St. Paul Issues Forum TODAY: http://www.e-democracy.org/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------- POST MESSAGES HERE: [email protected]
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Arno A. Karner aka (behind the muffs)
West 7th St. < 300 ft. NNW of GSE (wonder is their any investigative journalist left in minnesota)
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